Guide for Screening Applicants

The purpose of screening applications is to decide whether applicants for a position meet the basic qualifications. To do that, you need to be very clear about which skills are essential for the person to have and which skills are “desirable.” Once you have identified the “must have” skills for the position, you will want to remove the applications from persons who lack those basic skills. This will save you time and money as you have reduced the number of applications.

You should then review the remaining applications for evidence of the skills, qualities, education and experience you asked for in the job posting. The following rating form may be helpful to you in comparing the applications. Simply insert your own values to each of the criteria you are using and your total points value, rate the applications and the candidates with the highest total scores are the ones you would most likely interview.

Candidate Resume Rating Form

Candidate

Education /10

Experience

/10

Other Criteria

/10

Quality Application

/5

Other Criteria

/10

Other Criteria

/5

Total Out of 50 Points

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Tips for Reviewing Resumes

Here are some tips that can help you when reviewing the resumes:

Overall appearance: Look for professional looking resumes. A sign of typos or a cluttered, unorganized resume shows that the applicant can be sloppy, careless and unprofessional. Be aware of significant gaps in experience, which should be looked into. Also be careful of a significant number of jobs in a short period of time, which may mean loyalty issues.

Career Path and Accomplishments: Look for things such as promotions, advancements, etc. Look for specific accomplishments instead of general responsibilities.

Don’t consider: Don’t consider personal information that may be on the resume. Things such as age, gender, marital status and religious beliefs have no impact on qualification for a job. And remember, you are looking for the best candidate for the job!